Editorial: Tearing down Kerry backfires

Friday, March 12, 2004 | 8:47 a.m.

This week presumptive Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry criticized Republicans who had been attacking him and distorting his record, referring to them as "the most crooked ... lying group I've ever seen." Republicans responded with outrage at Kerry's remarks, but their protests ring hollow. Some of the broadsides by President Bush's surrogates have been unseemly and misleading -- and ended up hurting their own candidate in the process. One choice example occurred about two weeks ago when Republican House Majority Leader Tom DeLay attacked Kerry's opposition to the Vietnam War. Kerry did oppose the war, but only after he returned home from Vietnam as a war hero. DeLay's criticism invited ridicule because, unlike Kerry, he opted to use student deferments so he didn't have to serve in the military. Oops.

Sometimes it doesn't even have to be a top official who, in trying to tear down Kerry, does Bush more harm than good. That happened recently with Rep. Butch Otter, R-Idaho, whose views on the environment in the West and on the Yucca Mountain project should get the attention of Nevadans. Otter, in an opinion piece that appeared on the website of the House Republican Conference, which coordinates strategy for the GOP caucus, praised Bush's environmental policies while attacking Kerry's.

Otter claimed the "Bush administration has been encouraging stewardship, engaging those who know and understand the issues best. The idea is that people most influenced by federal policies should play a larger role in developing them." Otter adds that Bush "is working to roll back policies from eight years of big-government, one-size-fits-all thinking on such issues as public lands access, water sovereignty, wildlife management and sustainable use of natural resources."

But Otter's fear of big-government solutions, just like Bush's, vanishes as he lamely defends the federal government's heavy-handed tactics to bury nuclear waste in Nevada despite local and statewide opposition. Otter is particularly worried about what would happen if Kerry, who voted against Bush's plan to send nuclear waste to Nevada, wins the White House. "That waste will remain above our Snake River Plain Aquifer if Kerry is elected. It's as simple as that."

If we didn't know better, we'd suspect Otter was a double agent in cahoots with the Kerry campaign. After all, he's providing great material for Democrats to persuade people here why another Bush term would be a disaster for Nevada, which, unlike Idaho, will be one of the key swing states in the upcoming election. At this rate, Bush may be wondering if he can afford to keep getting the kind of help that he's been receiving from fellow Republicans such as DeLay and Otter.